Since Trump Took Over, Police Are Happy to Have a Leader Who Supports Them

Many people believe that President Barack Obama and his administration demoralized local police officers.

It all began when, after the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. for disorderly conduct, then-President Obama said the following:

“I don’t know – not having been there and not seeing all the facts – what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.”

Then came the incidents of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and other racially-sensitive tragedies that happened across America. Each time, Obama focused the blame on officers.

In July of 2016, after 5 officers were murdered in Dallas, Obama took another shot at the police:

“We’re here to honor the memory, and mourn the loss, of five fellow Americans — to grieve with their loved ones, to support this community, to pray for the wounded, and to try and find some meaning amidst our sorrow … [but] with an open heart, police departments will acknowledge that, just like the rest of us, they are not perfect; that insisting we do better to root out racial bias is not an attack on cops, but an effort to live up to our highest ideals.”

Deaths of cops have risen, but that is going to change.

In his Inaugural Address, President Trump spoke about the police, and law enforcement feels emboldened to do their jobs.

“Our job is not to make life more comfortable for the rioter, the looter, or the violent disrupter. Adding that “supporting law enforcement means supporting our citizens’ ability to protect themselves.”

Now, police are excited to work with Trump’s administration:

The police groups want to discuss the decrees with Jeff Sessions, Trump’s designee for attorney general who has voiced criticism of them, although any renegotiation would be legally complicated because all parties as well as a federal judge must approve any changes.

“There are certainly decrees that are inartfully applied that we’d like to see revisited,” said Jim Pasco, the head of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union with 330,000 members. It endorsed Trump in September and has worked with Sessions, a Republican senator from Alabama, for years while lobbying Congress for pro-police policies.

“We’ve always found him a man who’s willing to listen to alternatives to a previously charted course,” Pasco said of Sessions.

As an editorial for Police Magazine notes, Trump is a breath of fresh air for the men and women in blue:

Trump, for all of his flaws and his mistakes on the campaign trail, seems to support law enforcement officers. A year ago he spoke in front of officers in the Northeast about his support for a federal death penalty for cop killers. He also actively sought the FOP’s endorsement and received it. “[Trump’s] made a real commitment to America’s law enforcement, and we’re proud to make a commitment to him and his campaign by endorsing his candidacy,” National FOP President Chuck Canterbury told Politico.